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The largest ever gathering of distant members of Sweden's royal family is due to take place on Thursday – but the partners of the young Swedish royals have been left off the guest list.

The family party is being held amid tight security in Sofiero, near Helsingborg. There, minor royals and their other halves will get the chance to hob-nob with the winners of the Bernadotte family's genetic lottery.

Leading the royal line-up are King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia, who will be joined by their cousins in the Danish royal family, in what a palace spokeswoman said would be the largest gathering of the king's relatives ever held.

The party will go on all day, and will be followed by a knees-up on Danish Queen Margarethe's royal yacht (the Swedish royals being far too modest to have such a vessel of their own).

But royalty are a traditional bunch, and the guest list, while including all sorts of distant royal cousins, does not include the high-profile royal squeezes.

Daniel Westling, Crown Princess Victoria's boyfriend, did not get an invitation. Likewise Princess Madeleine's other half Jonas Bergström and Prince Carl Philip's girlfriend Emma Pernald will not get the chance to meet some of their more distant potential future in-laws.

Expressen has accused the king of “barring” the young royals' partners, and pointed to other family events to which they have not been invited, such as the official celebrations of Victoria's birthday last year.

But according to the palace press office, the failure to invite the young boyfriends and girlfriend should not be looked on as a snub. Rather, royal protocol means that the trio cannot come to family events until rings are firmly on their fingers.

“This is an official event, and those particular people do not belong to the official part of the family,” was how palace spokesman Morgan Järle put it to Expressen.

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